Archive for the 'home improvement' Category

Doug been at it all summer long, cutting down trees, clearing it away getting ready for the guys with heavy machinery to come in. Finally I took 2 weeks off in September to check on my lot and get some work done myself.

Wooden boats on display at Point Hudson

But 1st, let us enjoy the annual highlight of the year in Port Townsend. The Wooden Boat Festival fleet is in town at Point Hudson marina, and we have front row seats and parking space by Calliste. We feel so privileged….

Watching the schooner race

After 3 days of watching boats, its back to working on the prop. Only 1 tree that needs to come down was still standing. It was too large for Doug to handle safely, so it will be one for the guys with equipment.

The Hitachi 120 posing with the doomed Hemlock.

And there it goes. No sawing, what a pushover with that Hitachi 120. It wasn’t that easy actually. took some digging and pushing and digging again… cycles, until it finally come down.

Sewers properly installed.

After 1.5 days of pulling stump, levelling the ground and installing the sewerage pipe, I think the RV site is ready for occupancy.

Ta da! My new RV site is ready

Looking good isn’t it? Levelled, log wall by the side and trees in the back. Next year I hope to construct a deck, put up 2 easy chairs, plant a garden.

Sitka tree farm. My own Sitkas!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the log wall is my little Sitka tree farm. I am honoring my commitment to nature that provided Sitka timber for Calliste bowsprit. I promised to replace this wood. Here are my starts… ordered from Amazon, how amazing that is. I wonder if Amazon sells pot starts too… 🙂 That’s next on my garden plans.

Hurricane ridge.

Man and machine made quick work on my property, leaving us a free day to go up Hurricane Ridge.

View of San Juan de Fuca and Victoria, BC

It was a nice clear day, a bit too chilly for me as I wasn’t dress for the chill winds. But I am glad we came up when we did. Got a great view of Victoria across San Juan de Fuca and tour the little visitor center to learn about the Olympic mountains.

And after a productive and fun vacation, its back to my desk in Malta NY…

I am not enjoying the long days and great weather that much this year…. well, I am stuck in upstate NY (yes I am working, and I do enjoy my work), while Doug gets to go enjoy our cabin in the woods. The only consolation is that we are both getting so much done on both ends.

Site marked for container workshop

I hear that 20 trees have come down already, and that we are almost ready for the excavation guys to come pull those stumps and level out the workshop and camp site. Yep, I drew up some plans for a container workshop for us, a outhouse and camping deck that I could rent out to campers to cover property maintenance when I retire again.

My little summer project.

On my end, I’ve been making the dough that pays for the excavators, creating design automation solutions that I so enjoy doing anyway…. Long weekends like this 4th July weekends, I get to revamp my little blog. Yep its time to revisit some of those side panel links and catch up on whats going on around the world… when I work, I ignore the news…

I think better laying down.

And oh BTW, made a little phone holder for Scootz. My very own design, using scrap lumber leftover from the door project. Yep, I wanted to be able to use it standing up or on the side. Definitely on the side is better, IMO. The rubber coated wire tie is to hold it down so that it don’t flop out when I jump on the brakes or turn a hard corner too fast…

Thats my corner. All those windows above the 3 garages are part of my new space.

We will be in NY for a while… few years I think. Immediately, we need a place to stay. Being new to the area, and not really committed to being here for long, we look to rent and not to buy.

Moving in today. Nowhere to put my stuff on.

Ok, so I visited 6 managed communities and chose a rather high end 1 bedroom apartment with the usual facilities. Yes, I want to be comfy and not to worry about maintenance or digging Fordie out of the snow or clearing the driveway. I want to just furnish it, move in and go to work, in that sequence preferably….

IKEA delivery was here.

But it was not to be…. we moved in, ordered the furniture, go to work and complete the furnishing over 3 weeks. At least the mattress and bedding came within 1 day, the 1st night that we moved in. As for whatever we need in the kitchen, Walmart is only 10 miles away.

Altho cheap desk and shelves are available at Walmart, we hated how it look and feel so much that we rather eat on our laps and sitting on those crates.

Contemporary and comfy to me.

I did check out the local furnishing stores, and find that did not suit me. Did I want to drive 3hrs to IKEA in NY? And rent a Uhaul trailer to bring back those IKEA boxes? Nah. IKEA has been really good to me for over 20 years. I have always been able to furnish my space with everything IKEA, it got so comfortable to me that I could just order online and know exactly what I will get and everything is exactly as describe. I never realize how much I have come to trust and rely on a business! :O

A doorway to close off the stairway in the plans.

I could have saved $300 by renting a trailer and driving to NY, and gotten my furniture sooner. But nah, I paid the flat fee $380 for delivery which includes the guys bringing up every box to the 2nd level. Phew! I am glad we didnt have to do that ourselves. Assembly was back breaking enuf. By the time we finished, we were already living in the apartment for 3 weeks.

Doorway in the works.

Our shipment from PT arrive just after 2 weeks and that was a good thing, cos we needed some tools. After a full month here, we are all comfy and now shift into a home improvement mode. Things like adding roller shades, adding shelves and even constructing a doorway to keep the heat in our living space.

Doorway DONE

And by golly, am I not smart! I designed the doorway without a single screw into the walls. See, I am not sure if we are staying here for more than the 1 year lease arrangement, so I want to have the least patching possible.

Getting the blocks via my own means. Driveway 2 low spot only needs to rise 8″. Extra blocks stored on top of the row for now.

Better get in that gravel driveway before the next rainy winter season, otherwise I be sliding all over again after the 1st day of rain, just like I did all of last winter.

Low spot on driveway 1, lower end on left will be raised 2 blocks and only 1 block on right.

Here’s the plan, roughly, fill the low spot on driveway 1 to about 2 blocks high, that’s 16″. And driveway 2 only needs 1 block high, so that’s only 8″ and a smaller area.

Gravel delivered by the so called pros.

Well, I could’ve $2000 on having it done by the contractor for just 1 driveway, instead I set a budget of $1000 for 2 driveways and a parking lot. Sure it meant a lot of menial do it yourself… and of course it meant lots of trips to get the materials that I can haul on the trailer… and sure it will exceed my budget, but it wont be more than $2000 and I would have gotten a lot more done with that money.

Cute little kitty keeping me company while I work

Ok, so what I did buy is 2 pallets of cinder blocks. That is 150 blocks at $1.30 each. When you buy by the pallet, you get a bulk discount at Home Depot :).

3″ minus basalt at car park. Notice how its a mix of big rocks to fine gravelly sand.

I could only tow half the pallet or 40 blocks at a time, so I had to make 4 trips to get them all. Still the savings was well worth the gas, maybe not the time. Getting the blocks from the place across the street will cost $2.20 each. Plus I get other stuff too. Like 6 bags of concrete mix, and planks for the camper that I am still building, and I get to stop at Walmart next door to get cheap food and stuff. … well, I make a trip every week anyway just for fun and Home Depot doesn’t limit how soon I must get them all 🙂 I like the Poulsbro HD best. Most friendly and accommodating people 🙂 , and they help me load block by block :).

Driveway 1 open to vehicles, and we used it immediately.

Then its up to me to unload and arrange them. I am making a gravel retaining wall for over the low spot at the entrance…. I thought that it would be really expensive to use gravel to fill up a whole 20′ by 40′ by 16″, hence using the blocks to define 12.5′ by 40′. The driveway itself would be 120′, but its only the low spot that would gobble up the bulk of the gravel if I don’t try to contain it.

Driveway 1 leading towards RV tenant area just after 2nd dump. Will look even better after I spread it out.

Anyway, I took my own sweet time… like 2 months to set the cinder blocks… it was a lot of work building up a leveled base of sand, and btw I was building a camper shell and digging up 2 stumps at the same time. I started months ahead of the rainy season, so I had plenty of time to do other things as well 🙂

Looking in at driveway 1. Its done!

When it was time, I ordered 20 yards of 3″ minus basalt, 10 yards 2″ – 4″ basalt clean and 10 yards 3/4″ minus. Nope, I couldn’t haul rocks, Fordie could probably pull 1.5 yards at most. So I got a dump truck company to do it, but they send out a lousy driver for my job…. His dump was so horrible that it completely closed driveway. Even the driver knew how bad he did, offered to charge 12.5% less… which was $68 savings, but was 8hrs of extra back breaking work for me. Doug help for the critical 1st 4hrs to get the driveway open, after that it was me on my own again.

Driveway 2 is done too!

After 1 week of straightening out the 1st 40 yards, I order the next 20 yards of 1 1/4″ granite from a different company with their own dump truck driver. So I used the larger and cheaper basalt (costlier transport) as the base, and granite for the topping layer.

And I must say I am so happy with the dump by the 2nd company. It was almost perfect. Just 3 hrs of light shoveling and raking, driveway 1 topping layer was spread nicely. Another 3hrs on driveway 2, and my own sweet time on the car park at the cabin.

So a total of 60 yards is what I got, and it leveled both driveways beautifully, made a small berm on each one, levelled a car park/turnaround at the cabin, for a total cost of $1400 (60 yards gravel + transport) and $300 (2 pallets cinder blocks + 6 bags 60lbs concrete mix). Seems like I am still ahead monetary wise, but what a lot of work that was! Apparently, if it was all done by my usual contractor, it would have been $4000 altogether, but it would have been done in 2 days max.

I thot I might learnt a little something from Doug…. enuf to run the tools to build a tiny home perhaps? Well this isnt something that Doug would do, build on a tiny budget, small on weight and no resistance to impact. Not a sound building in his opinion, and should not even waste time on it…

My workspace setup next to the power pedestal.

So it is entirely up to me, if it is to be. We’ll see if what little I know can amount to anything.

Framing the floor.

It was mentally strenuous to work out the construction details, but it was harder if I had to start drawing it on paper. I tried, but all I have is just the layout. Making up for the lack of construction drawing is my willingness to just go out, chop up some planks and screw them together and see what I got and then make my next move.

My cute tools. Note the purpil pencil. Fancy eh?

Naturally my construction plans are fluid and changing all the time… even the finished dimensions is not fixed until the last … 🙂 heeheehee… That is my way of thinking, why limit myself to a fixed plan when I can change it all the time?

Removing the trailer… camper didnt stay on the blocks…

And it was all working out just fine, I was able to construct the floor right on the trailer…. then I wanted to remove the trailer so that I can screw in the plywood underneath….

Insulating the floor.

I worked real hard at jacking it up, putting blocks under the floor and then pulling the trailer…. opps…. the trailer is out but the jacks toppled. Its really hard to work on uneven ground and just a little nudge from the rail was going to push it over.

Luckily not much damage… phew… but who needs the extra work to set it up on the blocks again.

Well, at least I recovered and completed the floor with insulation. Yep, I am not skipping steps here. Trying to do a real good job.

I am so excited to have my 1st visitor from the orient on my property 🙂 In a way, I am wanting to hear feedback on the 2 lives that I lead, that are so contrasting … one as a city dweller and the other being so out in the sticks.

Pretty good selfie I think.

So I am overly eager to please my dear friend Limei, who has made that long journey from Singapore, who has to overcome transport difficulties to get from Seattle to Port Townsend, to visit me.

Tada…. the cabin shall be your abode for a night.

Day 1, drive 30 miles to pick up Limei from the Kingston ferry terminal at about noon. She managed to persuade her friend and host in Seattle, Karen to drop her off at Edmonds where she gets on the ferry as a foot passenger for $8.20, so it was not too much of a commute for her after all. 🙂

Alder wood BBQ.

Comfy new plastic Adirondacks

It was a Saturday in early summer, so it was busy touristy in the town of Port Townsend. Parking was quite difficult to get, but we did get one that was near to the NW Maritime Center. Did a 2 hr tour of ye olde Victorian town of Port Townsend. Yep, everything seem more pricey in quaint little towns, so we just enjoyed the browsing 🙂

Then was time to introduce the Cedar girl to the Cedar tree… and rustic living on my little land, where we still hand split our firewood and heat up our space with the slight fragrance of burning Alder.

Where it is so easy to cook outdoors with a fully loaded Alder wood BBQ for that added smoky flavor. Yes, YUMMY! I am happy that she agrees.

The new funvinyldecals workshop

And it was a nice evening out, hasnt been raining so the ground is dry and nice. Sun set at 9pm these days, but it does still get chilly as it gets darker. We sat out eating our BBQ on my new green plastic Adirondeck chairs:) Bought just for this occasion 🙂

When it got too chilly, we went into the cosy Alder heated cabin, and chatted till we fell asleep. Good old days.

New friends in Seattle

Day 2, visit to the new funvinyldecals workshop. Ok, so we converted the 20ft container that I bought for shipping Eleanor in 2014 into a office for Doug and sticker cutting shop for me. Of course I had to run the laptop and demo the cutting machine. In the end, she was loaded up with stickers as souvenirs for her visit.

Then it was time to send her back to her friends in Seattle. We drove on the scenic route down to Olympia and up to Shoreline. Who would have thought the traffic would be really bad on a Sunday afternoon? Oh well, it was good company so time passes quickly. Anyway, I hung out with the interesting new people and didnt get back till the next day 🙂 . Indulgent live of a retiree 🙂 Thank God for no schedules.

Now that the power situation in my SG flat is taken care of, I am back to work on my US prop. Time for the crew to come in for power and water installation.

View of the conduits going in at my South prop line.

There is a sequence here that we must follow. 1st, I pay the water connection fee $1755 to the city water department and the power connection fee $520 to the power utility department. Then I had to dispute where they had wanted to install the water meters (I paid for a dual tap) and which box they were going to tap power from. If I left it to them, I would have to pay a lot more $$$ for trenching these onto my south property line. So I learn to be very careful when dealing with them.

My favorite little tool… only if I can afford one myself.

It was a few weeks before the water department came out to install the 2 water meters on my south property line, as I dictated it.

My work wagon with little spare conduits

Then my contractors come in to install the power conduit to the transformer box and hook up from the water outlet to my pedestal. Of course they had to dig up the driveway to do that, so it was no driving out for a day.

Setting up the base, soon to pour concrete.

The guys with that little excavator are back. With their help, Doug set the power pedestal upright. By the time they were done, we have water at the pedestal. Hurray!

This was such a simple job, they were done in 6 hours, but still it cost me $2100…

Me churning the concrete with a rake.

Then its our turn to complete the electrical work. Well, most people would have hired a electrician, I suppose. But hey, I was an engineer, I suppose I could do this as a property owner and save me some $$$. Plus Doug is there to assist 🙂 …. in theory only, as he broke his back on the day we were going to pour concrete.

Me working on those stiff 10 AWG wires!

Ok, so I learned how to glue those conduits together, set them up before pouring the concrete in. Lucky me, hole for the concrete base was already dug before his back went out…. 1 less thing to do for me.

PUD at work. Cool little wire spool trailer.

But its up to me to lift those 60lbs bags into the wheel barrow, and mixing it up with water to the right consistancy. Then shoveling it into the form that he built on the day before. 1 bag at a time, 4 bags of 60lbs premix was what it took. Now to wait for it to set… I am pooped. My turn for a bad back…
Next day… look! its me working on the circuit breaker connections. Think I got it all right? Even Doug is impressed that I did the wiring so nicely.

Thats it, meter is in!

When thats done, went online to apply for an L&I inspection for a new service, $97. PUD would not come until inspection is done. We were pleasantly surprised that the inspector came within 12 hours of the application. Well, he must be happy with what I have done, cos I got the yellow passed sticker 🙂

Back of the pedestal, 3 30 Amps and 1 50 Amp.

Was surprise that the PUD guys showed up next day to tie us in. In just 2 hours, they installed the underground wire thru the conduit and to the meter. We are powered up!